Psychopath
by tolieawake
Summary: Kink meme fill: I want a fic where Sherlock ends up in a situation where he has to kill someone for the first time. Make it bloody, make it uncoordinated. Make it clearly in self-defense. Hell, make it an accident. I want police to get there too late and find Sherlock and the dead body. He's clearly shocky and not at all the cold sociopath everyone believes him to be.


**Kink Meme Prompt Fill**: I want a fic where Sherlock ends up in a situation where he has to kill someone for the first time. Make it bloody, make it uncoordinated. Make it clearly in self-defense. Hell, make it an accident.  
I want police to get there too late and find Sherlock and the dead body. He's not quite hyperventilating, but he's breathing heavily and he's trembling and he's babbling nonsensically. He's clearly shocky and not at all the cold sociopath everyone believes him to be.

* * *

She is the first one there.

Door flung open before the car had even stopped moving, high heeled boots pounding across the ground, face determined, breath controlled. Because, fuck it, Sherlock may be the biggest freak she's ever met, but there is no way she is going to let him die. Not on her watch.

She can hear Lestrade behind her, the deep breaths he takes as he runs, the beat of his feet against the ground. Red and blue washes over her, the glare of the lights ignored as she turns, putting her shoulder to the door.

It gives way before her, swinging open easily. Her mouth is open, sharp retort ready. Ready to rip into the Freak and tell him just what she thinks of him. Of the way he always, always has to run ahead. To take off with no thought of his own safety.

He's not... he's not one of them. It's not his job to put his life on the line. It's hers. Theirs. Not his.

Her mouth snaps shut on a sharp intake of breath. Her balance slips out from under her, momentum carrying it forward.

There is blood on the walls. A splash of bright red, stark against the grime and flaking lemon-yellow paint. It arcs out from a centre-point, a grotesque parody of an artist's rendition.

Beneath the wall there is a body, crumbled and unmoving. Eyes staring sightlessly up. A screwdriver impaled in the gaping throat, lists to one side, job done.

An artery, her mind dimly tells her. The screwdriver hit an artery.

One hand creeps up to her mouth, shock and fear flooding her system in equal measure so that she feels dizzy. She pushes past it.

There is a gun in the lifeless fingers of the corpse, now washed in blood. Along the wall, beside the red, are a spray of bullet-holes.

But that takes only a moment to notice. To catalogue. To see. Her attention, horrified and terrified, passes over it, barely giving it any thought.

For there is another figure in the room. Slumped back against the wall, harsh red clashing against his purple shirt - which, her mind whispers, may not be recoverable, a shame as he seems to like wearing it.

There is blood on his face, streaked over his forehead and cheek, littered amongst his hair. It drips from his fingers where they _shake_ before him.

Her breath catches in her throat.

By his side is a rickety old table, tilted to one side, leg giving way beneath it. Around the table lie the scattered contents of it's surface - a few more screwdrivers, wrenches, a saw, a rusting drill. There is a block of wood, broken in half. Cracked.

Her eyes flicker. But the crumpled clothing in the corpse, suggesting a rather forceful encounter with the wood, are quickly dismissed.

Unimportant.

What is important is the man before her.

The man with _shaking hands_.

She takes a step forward. Stops. Breaths in.

Behind her, Lestrade crashes through the door. Funny, she thinks, that it could only be a second or so since she entered the room.

Moving forward, barely thinking, she drops down beside him. Beside the Freak. Sherlock.

_his hands are shaking_

The blood on his face and hands is smeared, as though he scrubbed at it. A light scratch traces one of the streaks. As though he tore at himself to try and get rid of it.

The tremours in his hands increase, travelling up his arms. His head lifts, eyes bright and shiny. She's seen him cry on cue before, cajolling and manipulating witnesses by turn. There is no artiface in his gaze. There never is, not unless he wants her to see it.

He doesn't want her to see this.

His face spasms, smirk tugging at the edges of his lips, eyes darkening then brightening, lips parting.

_his hands are shaking_

His breath whooshes out without words. Then sucks back in again. Fast. Too fast. She reaches out, places a hand on his shoulder. The blood under her fingers squelches, trickles under her fingernails. Beneath the thin fabric of his shirt, his skin ripples. Trembles.

"Fr- Sherlock," she says, licking her lips.

His eyes meet hers, briefly, before darting back to the body. The corpse. She's seen this name enter crime scenes much worse than this with glee. Smile on his face, coat collar turned up and coat flaring out dramatically behind him. She's certain he does it just to annoy her some days.

She's seen him crawl all over dead bodies, poking and prodding and even, on at least one memorable occasion, tasting (even that crazy Dr Watson had grimaced at that). Seen him spin in eager anticipation of solving a crime, no thought to the lives involved.

She's heard him speak and she's always been certain, icertain/i, that one day she'd enter a crime scene to find him standing over a body. That one day, the reason for that body would be him.

A chill sinks through her at the thought. He's not exactly standing, propping up the wall as he is. There is no glee. No smile. His coat collar is half torn-off. The way it is crumbled beneath him, limp and bedraggled, has nothing dramatic about it. There are no words coming from his lips.

"Sherlock," she tries again, firming her grip. The tremours race beneath her hand, skittering across his skin.

"I -" he says. His voice is breathy, caught on his rapid exhale, cut off by his too hasty inhale. It cracks in the middle. "I, I- he, he- screwdriver- table- I- wood- grab- thought- think- gun- broken- I-" he cuts himself off, mouth clamping down over the words curling through him, eyes narrowing, turning pointedly away.

Their movement pushes a tear out to trail down his cheek, disturbing blood as it goes.

"Okay," she soothes. "Okay, Sherlock. Let's get you up, huh?" Reaching out with her other hand, she steadies him, pulls him away from the wall and up. He goes with her, all limp acquiescence, and resisting tremours.

"Okay," she repeats. But whether it's for him or her, she's not entirely sure. "Okay."

He leans against her - just for a moment - before trying to pull away. She allows him, at first.

But he wobbles, breath harsh and heavy, eyes locked on the body, body shaking so hard he would not have looked out of place in the snow in his underwear.

So she reaches out, snags his shoulder once more, tugging him until he's leaning against her, long frame draped over hers. Tremours tumbling against his skin to press up against her.

She steers him out of there, keeps up a constant stream of nonsense babble, the kind of nonsense he would usually scoff at.

When she looks up, she feels a distant surprise to see everyone there. Four patrol teams (all those Lestrade had been able to grab on short notice), Lestrade and Anderson.

The uniforms are gaping, mouths handing open. One is turned away, hand over his mouth.

She narrows her eyes, firms her mouth and glares at them.

Eyes drop, gazes averted.

Her eyes meet Lestrade's. He nods at her, sharp and quick. Then Anderson's. He doesn't say anything, doesn't look away. Just steps forward, slipping in on Sherlock's other side, propping him between them as they head out to the ambulance.

Sherlock is given a shock blanket. Distantly, she wonders how many of them he has, now. The paramedics check him over. She stays.

His bloody hand clasped in hers, fingers wrapped tight against his shaking, as though she can hold it at bay.

Anderson doesn't go that far, but he hovers nearby. A solid presence.

Slowly, the shivers ease. She only realises Sherlock's teeth had been clacking together when she can suddenly no longer hear them doing so. His fingers tighten in hers.

Finally, he clears his throat. "Clear- Clearly," he says, "you have once again managed to mangle the collection of your data to such a degree that you have managed to come to an erroneous conclusion and-"

"Shut up, Freak," she says, tugging him towards her with her grip on his hand. He slides against her and she gives him a quick, one-armed hug. He stiffens, pulling away. Her hand squeezes his once more before releasing as she pushes herself to her feet, stepping away.

"Watson's on his way," Anderson says. Sherlock's eyes snap over to him, narrowing into a glare.

"Your ineptitude -" he begins.

"Yeah, whatever, Freak," Anderson says, waving one hand. "Stay here."

Sherlock's mouth firms, eyes tight. A faint tremble moves over his frame. "Do as he says, Sherlock," comes Lestrade's voice. She turns to see him approaching with a scowl on his face. "You get up from there and I won't let you look at another case for a year."

Sherlock scowls but subsides, letting his body slump back against the interior of the ambulance.

Later, they never talk about it. Not them. Sherlock is still a Freak. And, as far as he is concerned, they are still far too incompetent to have been given their jobs in the first place.

They don't talk about it amongst themselves, either. Something like that - you just don't talk about it.

She hears the uniforms commenting about it once,

"I heard he was meant to be some great, unfeeling, psycho," one says.

The other scoffs. "No man who is unfeeling acts like that," he replies.

She glares them into silence.

Things go on. Sherlock swoops around crime scenes with flair and glee, trailed by his shorter shadow. Anderson and her trade barbs and snark with him with consistent regularity.

In the end, there is really only one thing that changes.

One word that never crosses their lips again.

They don't speak of it, don't acknowledge it. It is never a conscious decision.

But it is.

Because he isn't.

Psychopath.

(She doesn't, however, feel any guilt for calling him a sociopath - he'd labelled himself as such, so she figures it's fair game. For now.)


End file.
